The number of vehicles on the roads today are much more than these roads can handle. This is the reason behind the long and annoying traffic jams that we get stuck in every day. The growth of automobiles has also resulted in a growth in road accidents and vehicle theft. On the brighter side, this has led to the emergence of many new businesses that rely on fleets of vehicles.
Vehicle tracking systems have marked the revolutionary change in the landscape of the transportation and logistics sector. Given the fact that transportation is a rapidly involving industry, the advantages of the vehicle tracking system can transform the manner in which the fleet practices have been conducted for a long.
The application of GPS technology has led fleet owners to enjoy the benefits of a technological revolution which has greatly impacted the practices of several industries and sectors. Thus by putting into use the applications of the GPS technology in the daily practices of fleet business, one can win the challenges of transportation traditionally faced by fleet owners and drivers. For instance, the problem of fleet businesses of their vehicles getting stuck in traffic jams is a real pickle.
Fleet businesses lose a lot of time and money due to these traffic jams. These challenges can be overcome by using a vehicle tracking system. Many car owners and fleet owners have chosen to equip their vehicles with a vehicle tracking device and have experienced their benefits first hand. However, many are still sceptical of using a GPS vehicle tracker.
Here are the benefits of a vehicle tracking system.
1. Improved productivity
The construction and infrastructure cause many roads to get closed off or narrowed down and the rate of growth of automobiles contribute to the longest of traffic jams. Using a vehicle tracking device can help you to circumnavigate these obstacles. The vehicle tracking system helps you to choose shorter routes to your destination.
It also shows which roads are traffic heavy and which roads are closed off due to construction. If you are a fleet owner, this information can help you to optimize the routes where your vehicles travel so that it takes less time to reach the destination. This means that more tasks can be assigned to these vehicles, thus increasing the productivity of your business.
2. Controlling fuel expenses
Fuel accounts for the highest expense in utilizing a vehicle. A GPS tracker can help you save a lot of money that you spend unnecessarily on fuel. Most of the best vehicle tracking systems come with the feature of ‘fuel management’. A VTS with this feature can provide you with information on how efficiently your vehicles are using fuel.
The vehicle tracking device helps you to monitor where your vehicles are being driven to in real-time. Now you can check if your employees are making unauthorized trips. It can help you choose shorter routes for your vehicles. All these features can be used to control your or your company’s fuel expenses.
3. Good customer service
There are numerous fleet businesses today. And the competition between them is very tight. By using a vehicle tracking system, you can track your vehicle in real-time. If your customers need any assistance, you can send them help to the exact location without any delay. The best vehicle tracking system provides features that help you keep good accountability regarding the usage of your vehicles. This helps fleet owners to produce accurate bills for their customers. Using a vehicle tracking device in your vehicles can help you provide very good customer service to your clients.
4. Managing the business
Managing a fleet of vehicles manually is one of the most daunting tasks there can be. If you try to manage a fleet manually you are bound to lose a lot of time and money. This is especially true for large scales fleet businesses such as logistics companies or delivery services. A GPS vehicle tracker enables fleet owners to monitor the whereabouts of their vehicles live.
The best tracking systems come with pattern recognition and analytical functions which they use to calculate business trends. They provide comprehensive information such as most visited locations, locations that have more customers, the seasons when demands are high, etc. These trends are displayed as user-friendly infographics that can be used to plan the business to function more effectively.
5. Reduced staff and infrastructural expenses
To manage a fleet manually you need a huge workforce that is dedicated to the management of your vehicles’ operations. It also means that you require a lot of infrastructure to house the staff. This is a huge expense and it’s very unnecessary when better options are available. The better option is to use a vehicle tracking system.
This system digitizes the management of business operations. The system can be operated successfully by a very small workforce. So you don’t need a huge amount of staff and infrastructure. This cuts your expenses by more than half, helping you gain a significant edge over your competitors.
6. Managing assets
All mechanical objects have a lifespan after which they can no more be used. This is the same in the case of automobiles. Timely maintenance and upkeep of vehicles can help to extend the lifespan of your fleet. It is not easy to maintain vehicles to their best conditions manually and maintenance fraud can cause a lot of money to go to waste. The advantage of a vehicle tracking system comes with sensors that keep a check on the vehicle’s condition.
The system software provides information regarding the engine’s performance, mileage and condition of its parts. The device uses this information to compute when the vehicle must be serviced and how much the maintenance cost will be. This can help you maintain your assets so that they are working at their peak performance.
7. Security features
Vehicle theft can cause a lot of distress, both personally and in terms of fleet businesses. Stolen vehicles are not very easy to find without a GPS vehicle tracker. You could use a vehicle tracking system to make a perimeter in which your vehicle can operate. This is called geo-fencing. It is a feature that is present in all the best vehicle tracking systems in the market.
If you have geo-fenced a vehicle, it cannot go out of the delineated area. If the vehicle exits the service area, the vehicle tracking device sends an alert through the system’s application that is installed on your smartphone or your computer. You can also share the live location with the police department so that they can locate and return the vehicle safely to you.
8. Safety features
Millions of road accidents occur on the roads every year, which is alarming. This is the foremost reason to equip our vehicles with a GPS vehicle tracker. Vehicle tracking systems come equipped with MEMS (Micro Electro Mechanical Systems) sensors and a panic button. The driver can press the panic button to call for help in case of an emergency.
If the panic button is pressed, an alert is sent to two different numbers. One alert is sent to nearby emergency services so that they can receive aid as quickly as possible. Another alert is sent to the emergency contact that is linked with the system. This can help save your life in an accident or it can help save your employees life if you are a fleet owner.
9. Train to drive better
The way a vehicle is driven determines its lifespan. If a vehicle is driven too harshly it may wear down very fast. If you are a fleet owner, you could have come across employees that drive too roughly, endangering both your asset and the roads they travel on. The best vehicle tracking system provides you with information on your employees’ driving style.
It collects data on the braking style, acceleration, average speed, vehicle idling and cornering style of your employees. Then it analyzes this to rate the driving behaviour of your employees. You as a fleet owner could use this information to train your drivers to drive in a safer manner. If you are using the vehicle tracking system for your personal use, you could use it to train yourself to become a safer and more efficient driver.
10. Help save the earth
Earth is home to about 8.7 million of living creatures. There are a thousand ways with which we are destroying our planet and other species to whom this planet belongs. It is time that we start to address these problems and try to take precautionary actions. You as a driver or a fleet owner can contribute to saving your planet by checking the fuel consumption and the emission of your vehicles.
A vehicle tracking system can help you do this by feeding you information on the emission of your vehicles and by offering shorter travel routes which help to save fuel. This in turn helps to reduce your fleet’s carbon footprint. The system digitizes the company’s operation which means that you can manage your business from anywhere in the world, which means lesser paperwork. A vehicle tracking system helps to make your business smarter and also helps you protect the planet you live on.
